Amendment_2_Questions.docx

Responses to Questions

Note: Government responses are in bold.

Questions #1

1. There are several references to Section C.4.A. Please clarify where this section is and on what page? There are other references to Sections labeled with letters but no such Section labeling exists. Please clarify.

This should reference 2.4.A. An amendment will be issued to correct this.

2. Can you clarify if the Past Performance is based on 3 projects or 3 contracts?

This could be either one. We consider contracted work to be a type of project. This could also be a task order.

3. May we add more labor categories to the cost proposal? (The government benefits if more labor categories are used to allow the labor resources to be billed at closer to the actual costs.)

For this solicitation we request only including the requested labor categories in the solicitation for evaluation purposes. If additional labor categories are needed for a particular task order this will be addressed in the task order proposal stage.

4. On page 35 of the RFP, under Criteria 3 - Price, it is stated "For the material handling charge, the Government will apply the proposed percentage against $50,000 per year." Does the government want contractors to include this $50,000 a year by adding an additional line-item for ODCs to the Labor Rate Pricing Chart on page 3 of 35 (section I.4 Pricing) so the Government can see the total expected price including ODCs and markup, for each contractor, or will the government do this calculation separately from the chart, on their own, once contractors fill in the material handling fee applicable to other direct costs?

The Government requests that a percentage be inserted into the material handling charge space in section 1.4.

5. Please confirm that past performance questionnaires are to be submitted to Sean Wybenga by July 23 and not returned to the contractor for submission. (Page 32 says that in the PP section, "Offerors shall submit completed PP Questionnaires by the customers...")

Past performance questionnaires should be submitted by the customer to Sean Wybenga by July 23.

6. Assuming the completed questionnaires are returned directly to FDA, then Volume I, Past Performance Questionnaires, contains only the three questionnaires submitted to references with only Background Information completed. Is that correct?

That is correct.

7. We note that the RFP makes no mention of resumes or of any review of resumes. Should we omit resumes from our response?

Section 11.2 contains instructions with specific information requested for the personnel. Please submit the information requested. No resumes are required.

Questions #2

1. Is there a page limit for Volume I. Technical and Relevant Past Performance?

There is no page limit, however, please be reasonable with the amount of pages submitted in volume I of the proposal.

2. May bidders propose additional labor categories in addition to those shown on page 3 of the solicitation? For example, to offer best value to the government, may bidders propose mid-level categories in addition to senior and junior, or propose other labor categories that may help address complex analysis requirements?

For this solicitation we request only including the requested labor categories listed in the solicitation. If additional labor categories are needed for a particular task order this will be addressed in the request for task order proposal stage.

3. Page 17 of the solicitation describes requirements for Section 508 compliance. Will 508 compliance requirements apply to documents to be posted on the Internet, to Adobe PDF documents, or to both types?

This may or may not be required for both types of 508 compliance and will be specified on a task order basis.

4. The instructions on page 31 and 32 refer to Section C.4.A of the Statement of Work. Should this reference be to Section 2.4.A of the Statement of Work?

Yes, this should reference 2.4.A. An amendment will be issued to correct this.

5. The instructions for Relevant Past Performance on page 32 state that offerers shall submit information for relevant projects started within the past three (3) years. May bidders include projects that started more than 3 years ago but are still active?

No, FDA is interested in projects started in the past three years for Relevant Past Performance. Projects started more than three years ago can be mentioned in the technical section under “Organizational Experience.”

6. Page 35 of the solicitation states that award will be made to no more than two (2) parties for the overall IDIQ. After the IDIQ is awarded, will each of the task order solicitations be competed between the two parties?

It is expected that each task order will be competed between the two parties unless circumstances described in the FAR 16.505(b)(2) allow for a task order to be issued to one offeror under a multiple award IDIQ contract.

7. Page 33, 11.3 has a requirement for the submission of a Small Business Subcontracting Plan. Given that this is an IDIQ with only minimum and maximum amounts specified, could you please specify the total contract value for the base and each of the options that we should use as the basis of our plan?

The basis amount for the small business subcontracting plan should be $1.8M per year.

Questions #3

1. Would the Government consider changing the RFP to limit the task orders to firm fixed price? This is generally considered the preferred contract type (especially for commercial item acquisitions) and our review of the Statement of Work requirements indicates that the Government could obtain better value by issuing firm fixed price orders. For each task order, Offerors would propose the resources levels required to complete the deliverables, but the risk of performance would be on the Contractor and not the Government.

The Government reserves the right to issue firm-fixed price, labor-hour and time and materials task orders under this IDIQ contract.

2. As this is an acquisition of commercial items, would the Government consider an alternative pricing model for Section 1.4 that would enable Offerors to use their GSA Schedules to develop the pricing model for evaluation rather than pre-determined labor categories with hourly rates?

The Government will be using the fully burdened hourly rates listed in section 1.4 for evaluation purposes.